Positions at a glance
Supporters
"Complementarity" is the diplomatic and legal framing used by supporters of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) to argue that it strengthens the existing nuclear order built around the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). The claim is that the TPNW operationalises Article VI of the NPT, under which parties pledged to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to nuclear disarmament.
Opponents
Critics — chiefly the NATO nuclear-sharing states, the five NPT nuclear-weapon states (P5), and umbrella allies such as Japan, Australia, and South Korea — counter that the TPNW risks creating competing legal standards, weakens consensus diplomacy at NPT Review Conferences, and ignores the security environment that sustains deterrence. A joint statement by the US, UK, and France in 2017 rejected the TPNW outright.
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At the 2022 NPT Review Conference in New York, Austria and Ireland argued that the newly entered-into-force TPNW was complementary to the NPT, while the United States and France maintained it risked fragmenting the non-proliferation regime.
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